The Album
by LovelyLittleFreckle
Summary: CONTAINS 01x09 SPOILERS. After the events surrounding Anslo Garrick, Liz learns more about Red than she bargained for. Mostly just getting my feels out on this one, for now it's a one shot but we'll see about adding more later if possible.


I was surprised to find him the way that I did… I was surprised to find him at all. In hindsight I should have known that he would be there, but I didn't figure that opening his door would wake him up from what looked like a nap or a deep reverie. Instantly I felt like turning around, sad that I had interrupted him in a moment that he had desperately needed, practically since the day I met him. Picking his chin up slowly off his chest, he didn't look at me – as he always preferred, he looked out the window.

"I'm sorry I woke you," I said.

"It's fine. It wasn't the kind of sleep from which a person minds being roused," he picked up his drink and raised it to his lips – deciding only at the last moment not to drink it. It looked as though his taste for it had left him.

"What can I do for you, Lizzie," he asked.

"For once, nothing. I came to see if there was anything I can do for you."

"You can sit. I'm not accustomed to being alone. Not yet."

I sat down on the opposite end of the couch and watched him for a few moments, realizing too late that I was effectively treating a grieving man like a zoo animal. As was his habit, he was done talking but still thinking, so he was absently chewed the inside of his lip, screwing his mouth up into a thoughtful pucker. Idly and morbidly, I wondered what Luli used to do, keeping him company for hours at a time. I could have made an educated guess seeing that I had walked in on her wearing just his button down shirt mere weeks ago, but I had never explored the idea that there might have been more to it than the obvious.

"Did Cooper send you to look for me?" he asked "Is he still tracking the chip or is he just operating on instinct now? Seeing that he didn't trust mine, it's nice to see him suddenly appreciating the concept."

"I'm here on my own accord."

He nodded, still not looking at me. The apartment was largely unchanged from the last time I was there. It smelled like a library, which I appreciated. It fit him. It seemed like hours that we sat just looking out the window. There was nothing going on outside of it but there didn't need to be. From my vantage point on the couch I could see the scar I left on his neck from the hole in his carotid and I felt awful. At the time I had felt so justified, but now the thought of hurting him made me want to cry.

"Lizzie, I regret not being more… sympathetic about what happened to Tom."

With those simple words, images that I had wanted to forget started to flash through my mind. I remembered Tom's ruptured capillaries, obscuring his eye when it's the only part of his face I had to look at. I remembered wishing even at the moment it happened that I never had to know first-hand what a stab wound _sounded_ like. I remembered the smell of blood interacting with carpet cleaning solution and how upset I was when Hudson wouldn't leave me alone to clean it – even when I knew he was just trying to comfort me. Then I remembered Luli's lifeless body. Even as complicated as everything had become – I could call Tom right now and hear his voice if I really wanted. Red didn't have that same luxury. I felt the string in the bridge of my nose that let me know I was going to start to cry.

"I don't suppose I would know what to say to that either," Red said.

"I'm sorry. It's all so much."

For the first time, he turned to me and I couldn't hold his gaze, looking down. He sighed heavily and as if coming out of a trance, held his glass back up to his lips and drank.

"What is it about a profound tragedy that makes us want to hold this prism up to it? There is a very present part of us that wants to hide from every aspect of the person we've lost. But there's another very potent part that brings everything back in waves. When we least expect it we are battered by the surf of reminiscence. Then morbidity, self pity… and they serve no purpose. But none of us is immune. Maybe it's because it's such a stark reminder of how alive we are and how fragile that is. How strange what a gift that is and yet that there is still no solace in it."

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think of anything to say. And worst of all I couldn't help. After fighting for him and putting my life on the line for him, I couldn't do the simple task of offering him comfort in words.

He gestured to a large leather bound book on the table.

"You're welcome to take a look through that. It's only fair since I gathered so much information about you before you even met me… here's a chance to catch up."

"I don't want to intrude in your life if you don't want me to. Don't feel obligated to let me into your life just because you spied on me. These are very different circumstances," I said.

I looked him in the eye and found his face blank, but determined. I had seen him beg too often in the past few days to not recognize the desperation on his face. He wanted to connect with someone. This must have been what he had found himself mourning the second the Luli was killed – someone who knew him as intimately as he would allow.

In the same moment that I reached for the book, I could have sworn that I felt him move closer to me. The first few pictures in the book were landscapes and pictures of various buildings and attractions. I flipped a few pages before the feeling set in that she didn't have to be a voyeur. Not when all he wanted, really, was a friend.

I pointed to a picture of a house – the numbers on the front of which stood out to me.

"This house… this was your last known address. I recognize it from your file."

"Yes."

"It blew up a few weeks ago."

"I find it odd that you've waited this long to bring it up," he said with a morose chuckle.

"Anyone who knows that address and its significance to you wouldn't need to ask any questions. I understand," I said.

"So did she," he started, smiling. "She was proud of herself for procuring it, but she was a perfectionist. She was upset that the house was in escrow before she found out it was on the market. She was not a fan of the last minute. She was precise. Intimidatingly organized. Ruthless."

Just as I was picturing her face in my memory, it appeared on a page in front of me. She was much younger, but I would have recognized her anywhere. My first instinct was to flip past it before Red had to relive anything too painful, but his voice stopped me with a growl.

"Ah, this was nearly 15 years ago. Paris. She hated it there, France was not her scene. You'll notice the grimace," he said, tapping the picture and moving closer to me. I could sense a wry smile without even looking at his face. It took a long time for me to look past her stony expression and notice that Red was in the picture too, his arm around her. He was nearly unrecognizable. Instead of his usual suits, he was wearing slacks and a rumpled button-down shirt, the sleeves rolled up. To my surprise he didn't look 15 years younger in the picture… he looked drawn. Where his wrinkles were now dignified and the product of a normal aging face, his face was wrinkled then to compensate for slacken cheeks and tired eyes. This wasn't the picture of a man whose smile was easy… he looked pained. He looked like he had been deflated, not just mentally but physically.

"How old were you here?"

"I must have been about 38, maybe 40. Luli was 25, just graduated with a doctorate in business from MIT."

"How did you meet her?"

"I recruited her out from under a colleague. I'm not sure he ever got over that."

I smiled at him, expecting to see a smile back. He was looking far off again – that thousand yard stare.

The next set of pictures was of a much younger Red, in uniform. His eyes were soft, his smile genuine. His strong jaw and pronounced cheekbones gave him away but it was clearly the same person only three lives before.

I felt my breath catch before I had the opportunity to stop it. Emotionally it felt as though I had just seen him naked; and really, when I thought about it, I had. I saw him in this picture, stripped of everything that made him the man I knew. He hadn't experienced heartache then, at least not as recently. At least not yet. Not really. He hadn't been hardened by a life of crime and deception. It occurred to me that he was younger, in this picture, than I was.

"Wow…" I said. "You were um… very handsome."

"I resent your use of the past tense, but yes."

"I certainly didn't mean to imply you aren't… presently… um…"

"Don't put yourself out in the wind, I know what you meant," he said, with the ghost of a smile.

There were pictures of his daughter, pictures of his wife. Both gorgeous. Both happy. By this point, he was gazing back out the window again and after taking a cursory look at pictures that could have been of any happy family, I closed the book.

"Where were you keeping this album all these years?" I asked.

"Luli kept it in various locations," he said with a heavy sigh. "I don't have that anymore. I won't have anyone to keep my secrets. Not the ones you share with just anyone, but the ones you share with a woman who you can trust. She was that person to me, she has been for years," he said wistfully.

"I can't begin to imagine, Red. I'm so sorry."

"It's nice to hear someone with a badge call me something other than my full last name," he said, smiling at me.

"I'm not wearing my badge right now," I said.

"I was under the impression that there was only one capacity in which our relationship existed and that was professional. Nothing has to change simply because you pity me now. You don't have to pity me. It was always a possibility that this day would come and that she would be used against me. I was never under the impression that she was immune, but I don't take lightly the role I played in her death," he said.

"Red, it wasn't your fault," I said.

"Oh, please. I've seen Good Will Hunting, I know how this speech goes. It didn't deserve an Oscar then and it doesn't deserve one now. It was my fault, it was entirely my fault. When I met her she was bound for any job she wanted in the entire country and she fell for my vulnerability at the time. I had just abandoned my wife and my child and my country, and she was intrigued by the opportunity in front of her. In front of me. And I shouldn't have offered it. The second she met me, she was on borrowed time and I knew it; it had everything to do with me," he said matter-of-factly.

He was looking away again. He was close enough that his hand was within my reach and I made a decision then that I didn't comprehend, it was just second nature. I reached out to touch his hand like he had touched mine when I thought my life was in shambles. Like I had, he clasped it back. This time there was no wedding ring wedging itself between our intertwining fingers.

"Thank you for staying with me," he said, taking in a composed breath after he was finished speaking.

"You would have done the same for me," I said.

As we both turned our heads toward the window, hands still clasped, I took a moment to appreciate what he'd mentioned the first time I'd been there. The light really was gorgeous coming in through the window and I watched the airborne dust twinkle and dance in the daylight, floating eerily through the still air of the room. I watched Red's chest as it rose and fell, and felt myself following suit as his breathing slowed into sleep.


End file.
